Belated Heart Beats
by Akumugan
Summary: He succeeded. She was gone. -Ruby, Sapphire


She stops asking him her broken-record question one spring when they're almost sixteen. When they fight and get to the usual point in the argument where she asks, there's nothing. Sapphire just sighs and gives up, resuming what she was doing before they quipped at each other that sparked the disagreement. Ruby has his mouth poised to say "No." but the question never comes and he looks like a gaping Feebas.

He blinks perplexed but shrugs it off and continue to sew some frilly little accessory for Coco. He thinks she'll ask him sometime later, when she thought he was off-guard. Ruby makes a little amused sound from his throat. Sapphire rolls her eyes behind his back.

The voids in their arguments and conversation increase. The part where her question should be is missing. The absence nags at Ruby's consciousness, but he can't quite place why.

Ruby even asks her, in place of her usual question. "Weren't you going to ask me something?"

Sapphire blinks bemusedly at him. "Um, no? Why?"

Ruby hurriedly shakes his hands in dismissal. "Nothing. Just felt like you were going to ask me something."

"Nope," Sapphire shakes her head.

Ruby follows her into the jungle, ducking under branches and stepping over muddy spots on the ground.

It's a cold day in early December when he realizes: She is not asking him if he remembers. Sapphire hasn't asked him in months. One part of him is relieved but another is uneasy. His gut twists even more uneasily when he realizes what is uneasy. His heart was uneasy, Ruby realized. In turn, uneasiness blooms into terror. Terror that he's becoming increasingly aware that he does like her beyond friendship (always had, but kept concealed) and this cease in inquiring about his memory messes everything up.

There is terror that she's given up on him- she, Sapphire, who persevered the best out of anyone he knew. There is a panic like he's never felt before bubbling in his chest: She may not love him like she did before anymore. It makes him bolt upright in his bed in the middle of the night, startling Coco who flees off the bed.

Ruby doesn't how to compare this feeling to. It feels so different from fearing that his clothes would be stained during some trek through the jungle after her. It feels so horrifyingly unique compared to the experienced fear of losing a key accessory before curtain time.

He was losing grip on something so much more important than a stupid object. He was losing Sapphire, and realizing that he was instilled an even greater terror in him. Ruby realizes: Sapphire is his best friend. Sapphire is his best friend, and the girl (she was, she definitely was) he was (no doubt about it now) in love with.

And she had stopped asking him the question that reminded him subconsciously that she loved him still too.

Did that mean she didn't love him anymore? Did he succeed in pushing her away from his wary, scared heart?

Ruby doesn't sleep that night until early morning.

He doesn't wake up when his mother comes to his door and tells him that Sapphire is at the door. His mother leaves and tells Sapphire that Ruby is asleep and won't wake up.

"Okay." Sapphire sighs. "Just tell him that I'm going to Victory Road, please?"

His mother nods and Sapphire leaves.

Ruby wakes up well after noon with a start. His pokemon are nowhere in sight but he figures that his mother is feeding them for him so he showers, fending off the discomfort in his gut that he'd like to dismiss as hunger. Dressed and properly groomed, he goes downstairs where his pokemon are munching on their midday meal. His mother paused in pouring a glass of water when she sees him.

"Ah, Ruby," she smiles. "You're awake. Sapphire came by this morning to tell you that she's gone to Victory Road to challenge the League but you were asleep."

"What?" the incredulous reply falls out of his mouth.

"Sapphire left to challenge the League," his mother repeats gazing curiously at her son.

"Oh," Ruby forces his expression into neutrality. He shrugs, "Okay."

"Are you hungry?" his mother asks smiling.

"No," Ruby turns away to climb back up the stairs. "I'm not hungry."

As he opens his door his stomach growls but he ignores it and shuts the door behind him, locking it. Ruby sinks to the floor, running his hands through his hair under his hat. The hat falls off his head.

"She's leaving me," Ruby mutters in disbelief.

He thought she'd never leave him. He always pictured them together, one way or another. Best friends till the end. He lost her once, after the Salamence Incident, but he got her back years later.

"It was like god damn fate!" Ruby cries out angrily banging his fists on his knees. He buries his face in his hands, ashamed of the outburst. His mother probably heard him.

"And now she's leaving me again," Ruby near-moaned.

She was going to breeze past Victory Road and charge through the Elite Four lineup and trample on the current Champion, taking the title for herself.

Ruby remembers distant promises of getting to the league at a young age like Red had. A promise he broke in favour of non-brutality. A promise she broke, opting to stick around him. He wonders how long she's longed to leave, to challenge the League. Ruby never asked, never cared about barbarism. Ruby realizes he should have asked.

Now Ruby was paying the price.

He sighs in defeat, "Damn it."


End file.
